Humanity Watch

Some 310 people were injured of which five of them were serious injured when a wooden boardwalk collapsed at a festival in the harbour area of the City of Vigo in North-western Spain. The walkway collapsed under the weight of the visitors during the night, with some even falling in the water, Jesus Vazquez Almuina, the health minister for the region of Galicia, in which Vigo is located, said on Monday. “A substantial part of the boardwalk, 30 by 10 metres, was affected,’’ Vigo Mayor Abel Caballero told reporters. The cause of the collapse was not yet clear. The fire brigade used heat-seeking cameras to see if there were any further victims under the debris, but there were none. The annual O Marisquino festival of urban culture and sport has been taking place since 2001 and draws a largely young crowd. (dpa/NAN)

Nine members of the National Youth Service Corps who are currently serving in Taraba State on Saturday drowned in River Mayo-Selbe in Gashaka Local government Area. Taraba State Police Command Police Public Relations Officer, ASP David Missal, who confirmed the death of nine out of the 22 corps members who were swimming in River Mayo-Selbe said seven corpses have so far been recovered from the incident. “Information available revealed that 22 youth corps members had gone on a picnic party in River Mayo-Selbe in Gashaka LGA on Saturday when the incident happened. “We were made to understand that while they were swimming in the river, there was sudden upsurge in the volume of water, which carried them away. “Nine of them drowned, while others managed to escape. “We have so far recovered seven corpses, while the search for the two remaining corpses is still in progress,” Missal said. State NYSC Coordinator, Mrs. Florence Yaakugh, also confirmed the incident, which she desc...

At least 14 people were killed and over 160 injured after a large earthquake struck a popular island in Indonesia near the popular tourist destination of Bali on Sunday, officials said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck at a depth of only 4.4 miles. Shallow earthquakes tend to do more damage than deeper ones. The powerful temblor, which was followed by two smaller earthquakes and 60 aftershocks, hit the Lombok island, with the eastern part of the island sustained more language. “People in East Lombok and Mataram felt the strong quake for 10 seconds, residents were panicking and running outside of their homes,” said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency, according to Sky News. The quake killed a 30-year-old Malaysian woman in East Lombok, and the number of causalities could rise as officials search the island, Nugroho said. Over the 162 people reported injured, 67 hospitalized are with serious injuries...

A deep 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck off eastern Indonesia on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey said, but there was no tsunami warning. The strong quake was centered about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north-northeast of Maumere town on the island of Flores, the USGS said, at a depth of 360 miles. Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismic activity hotspot. It is frequently hit by quakes, most of them harmless. However, the archipelago remains acutely alert to tremors that might trigger tsunamis. In 2004 a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, in western Indonesia, killed 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia. AFP

A wildfire killed at least 50 people and injured scores more as it swept through a small resort town near Athens, Nikos Economopoulos Head of Greece’s Red Cross said on Tuesday. He told Skai TV that the wildfire trapped families with children behind walls of smoke and flames as they tried to flee to the beach. The fire in Mati was by far Greece’s worst since flames devastated the southern Peloponnese peninsula in August 2007, killing dozens. It broke out late on Monday afternoon and was still burning in some areas on Tuesday morning. People scrambled to the sea as the blaze closed in near the shore while hundreds were rescued by passing boats but the fire moved too fast for others. “I was briefed by a rescuer that he saw the shocking picture of 26 people tightly huddled in a field some 30 meters from the beach. “They had tried to find an escape route but unfortunately these people and their kids didn’t make it in time,” Economopoulos said. A Reuters photographer saw...

The remains of Hindatu Yahaya, a young girl who got married three days before the flood in Jibia town in Katsine, which eventually swept her away, have been recovered in Niger Republic. Husband of the deceased, Malam Sani Yahaya, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Jibia. “The Corpse of my missing wife was retrieved at Girka village in Mada-Rumfa town of Niger Republic,” he said, with emotions flowing in his voice. Yahaya said that the flood occurred on Monday night at about 2:00am, cleared his house and took away his wife. “We searched in the river and rubles of the collapse walls of my house and the houses of our neighbours but could not locate her. “As we are searching, we got a phone call from people that are helping us in Mada-Rumfa town of Niger Republic, that the corpse of a young woman has been retrieved from the river that pass through their town. “We rushed to the town and discovered that it was the remains of my wife that was fished out of ...